All aboard! Oxford-Cambridge rail service to go ahead

whose heating is broken rather than using their money to insulate rooms over vacation. “The way the emails were worded blamed the student body for the power cuts when we are paying 5.5k to stay here for 27 weeks and expect energy, food and heating at the least.”

LMH told Cherwell: “Part of the college experienced temporary power failures due to an electrical overload. The college team was able to re-instate the electrical supply quickly. We communicated with our staff and student groups about the reasons for the outage, and about ways we can all work together to address the problems the college has encountered.”

Students say intermittent cuts have continued into week 3.

Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, has announced his backing of a ‘Pan-Regional Partnership’ for the OxfordCambridge region.

According to the proposal, this partnership would unlock up to £2.5million in government funding, to be put towards “sustainable growth” and “environmental enhancements” in the region. These changes would include the building of the £5 billion East-West Rail service between Oxford and Cambridge, for which work is already underway.

The green-light for the rail service came after a funding proposal was submitted to the central government by leaders of local councils, enterprise partnerships, the Arc Universities Group, and the subregional transport group for the region of England’s Economic Heartland. It is to begin with the recruitment of an independent chair, but in the interim, a shadow board is set to oversee the programme and decide on matters of both its governance and funding.

Councillor Barry Wood of Cherwell District council is chair of the shadow board. He said: “We believe that by working together the whole Oxford to Cambridge region can be greater than the sum of its parts. With official status as a pan-regional partnership backed by government, we can unlock potential and further strengthen our area’s position as a hub of innovation, a globally recognised region of science and technology that delivers prosperity for our communities.”

Michael Gove recently defended his department against accusations of the South-East receiving an unfair proportion of money available from the Levelling Up Fund, despite its founding aim of combatting regional inequality in the UK.

In conversation with Times Radio, Gove said: “It’s simply untrue that the levelling up fund is concentrated disproportionately on London and the south-east.”

“If you look per capita at the amount we’re spending, the biggest winners are those in the north-west – and of course, yes there is some spending in London and the south-east, but there are some areas of deprivation in London and the south-east. But it’s overwhelmingly the case that the areas that benefit the most are the northwest, the north-east and the east Midlands.”

Labour analysis, however, has predicted London to receive funds more extensive than both Yorkshire and the North-West as part of the next £2.1 billion round of funding for projects across the UK. This can in part be seen as a result of authorities’ need to promote development projects in order to compete for central government funding.

According to the government Prospectus for Levelling Up, while “the Fund is open to every local area, it is especially intended to support investment in places where it can make the biggest difference to everyday life, including ex-industrial areas, deprived towns and coastal communities.”

The proposed Oxford-Cambridge panregional partnership is likely to be an interesting addition to government policy.